Softball Team Wins Series at Brown, Awaits Thursday's Start of Ivy Tournament at Home

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The teams are set, Princeton's first opponent is set, and the Tiger softball team entered Saturday's regular-season finale doubleheader at Brown knowing it would host the Ivy League Tournament.

Saturday's split, in which the Tigers came within one out of a series sweep with a 4-3 loss in Saturday's opener before a 7-5 win in the nightcap, along with other results around the league, meant Princeton will clear the Ivy League field by no fewer than two games, finishing with a 17-4 Ivy record.

That was enough for the No. 1 seed and the opportunity to host the Ivy League Tournament for the second straight year. Brown will be in as the fourth seed, and Princeton and Brown will meet in Thursday's 12 p.m. tournament opener. Harvard and Columbia will meet in the following game, and Sunday's results will determine which team is seeded second and third. A Harvard win Sunday over Cornell will put the Crimson in the No. 2 spot, while a loss and a Columbia win would put the Lions second.

As for Saturday's games, Brown knew it would qualify for the Ivy League postseason for the first time since the first incarnation of the Ivy postseason in 2007 with one win, and it took until the bottom of the seventh in Saturday's opener for the Bears to seal it.

Brown got Saturday going with a two-run homer from Laurel Moody in the first inning but saw Princeton pull in front with a pair of fourth-inning runs. Allison Ha and Allie Goodwin had doubles two batters apart over the first three batters of the inning to tie it at 2-2, and after a walk to Lauren Pappert and a Graciela Dominguez base hit reloaded the bases, Julia Dumais drew a walk to put Princeton in front. The Tigers got on the board in the third inning after a Dominguez leadoff single and a Karis Ford base hit three batters later.

Tiger starter Cassidy Shaw scattered four hits and two walks between the second and sixth innings as Princeton regained the lead and held on into the seventh. A leadoff triple for Brown's Amanda Deng put the tying run just a base away, and though Princeton was one out away from a win with the bases loaded and two out after a pair of walks after Brielle Wright entered, a wild pitch allowed the tying run to score a batter before Cameron Zytkewicz Ray had a base hit to drive home the winning run and clinch Brown's Ivy League Tournament bid.

The series finale saw Brown get out to an early lead again, using three walks and two singles to score three runs in the first before Keala Hollenkamp entered for Wright. Hollenkamp got three straight strikeouts to leave the bases loaded, and the rest of the game was hers.

Princeton got on the board in the second inning after a leadoff walk to Sonia Zhang put a runner on for a Dominguez RBI single three batters later, but Brown recharged its lead to 5-1 with two runs in its half of the second on a Deng two-RBI double.

Princeton scored three runs apiece in the third and fourth innings and led the rest of the way. In the third, a base hit for Dumais, a walk to Ford and a Ha single loaded the bases for a Zhang RBI groundout followed by a Goodwin double to pull Princeton within 5-4. In the fourth, a Dumais walk and a Braeden Hale base hit put two on for a Ford two-RBI go-ahead double, and Zhang followed two batters later with a run-scoring single to make it 7-5.

Hollenkamp finished with two runs allowed on three hits and two walks, striking out six in seven innings of relief to get the win. The outing was more than twice as long as the rookie Hollenkamp's previous longest stretch in the circle, which came with 3 1/3 innings of work at Texas A&M on Feb. 27, and the six Ks doubled her previous Tiger best, having struck out three against Quinnipiac on March 14 and three against Rider on April 29.

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